The Black Atlantic

The Black Atlantic is the Dutch indie pop outfit formed around singer and songwriter Geert van der Velde, former frontman for Shai Hulud. The Black Atlantic was started as a project but fairly quickly turned into something more serious after Geert recorded his first song - a Valentine's gift to his then girlfriend, now wife - in February of 2006. Recording 'Send This Home (a letter in sonics)' and the subsequent label interest after the song's debut on Myspace gave the project the momentum that... (more)

The Black Atlantic is the Dutch indie pop outfit formed around singer and songwriter Geert van der Velde, former frontman for Shai Hulud. The Black Atlantic was started as a project but fairly quickly turned into something more serious after Geert recorded his first song - a Valentine's gift to his then girlfriend, now wife - in February of 2006. Recording 'Send This Home (a letter in sonics)' and the subsequent label interest after the song's debut on Myspace gave the project the momentum that it needed.

In January of 2007 The Black Atlantic made it's first live appearance at the Eurosonic Festival, one of Europe's biggest independent music festivals / showcases. Since then the band has toured and played shows with various line-ups. The current touring and recording line-up around Geert is: Robert Koole on drums, Arjen de Bock on piano and keyboards and Matthijs Herder on bass. Robert and Matthijs are both also active in progressive and psychedelic rock outfit Oceana Company The Black Atlantic's debut EP "Send This Home" was recorded in the early fall of 2006 by Geert with the help of various contributing friends (no current members of the band).

It was picked up early 2007 and released in the US by Five Point Records (NY)and is also available in Germany through Midsummer Records.

In October 2007 Matthijs, who is the owner of the Paperboat Studio steered the band through a 5 day recording session which resulted in the recording of the 2 songs "Madagascar" and "Lonely Moons". Both songs are currently digitally available for downloading for free and will be physically released on a limited edition 7" vinyl through van der Velde's own music platform / collective Ham Radio Communications.